The transport sector represents a complex framework, due to both its size and the wide range of themes (infrastructures, stock of vehicles, traffic of passengers and goods, safety) and the number of bodies involved, since the administrative responsibility is allocated among various institutions: the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, Regions, Provinces, Municipalities, etc. The responsibility for transport statistics is also not exclusively assigned to ISTAT, other institutions such as the relevant Ministry and the Ferrovie dello Stato (Italian State Railways group) have a strong and consolidated tradition in implementing statistics and provide indicators of considerable interest.

The survey of sea transport is one of the oldest. The importance of the transport sector in the development of the country led to awareness of necessity to collect information on the phenomenon as early as the 19th century. The first figures, although still not a systematic collection of information, were acquired by the Ministry of Navy and later on by the Ministry of Finance. The figures on the rail network also date back to the early 1800s, while information on air transport began in the 1920s... full text